While buying 日本人の知らない日本語 at Kinokuniya I found a series by the same publisher, called ダーリンは外国人, written by a Japanese manga artist, who is married to a foreigner; the series chronicles their adventures and life together, detailing what it's like to marry a foreigner, and is in the same manga-essay-form as 日本人の知らない日本語. It was humorous enough that I bought all the ones available, and now that I've finished the series I can highly recommend them to students It's full of great humor, food for thought, and random tidbits of knowledge, just like 日本人の知らない日本語. Since it deals a lot with living in Japan as a foreigner, and the language from a native English speaker's perspective, I think it would be an amusing read to any learners here.

There's not really any furigana, and the vocab, grammar, and topics are more fit for more seasoned learners, so I don't suggest it for beginners, but for mid to upper intermediate students it should be great

So yes, this is my obligatory endorsement, go give ダーリンは外国人 a shot! There is also a comedy film based upon it that came out in April, and an English version as well.

IIRC, she added a lot of furigana to the series after the first one, due to a lot of foreign readership...

I remember we read a few chapters of this in my class. Then when I was in Japan for a year, the movie came out on the week of my birthday I was unaware that there was an English version as well...? Although I personally preferred the books, the movie definitely had its moments.

It's definitely got a special place in my heart, and I did end up buying ダーリンは外国人、２, "with baby." And something like 'tony's guide to happiness' or something.

I'm not sure who the actress was who played Saori, but I wouldn't mind ずっとずっとミルクティを飲む-ing with her, if you know what I mean.

edit: and what's the deal with "my darling is ambidextrous"? I never understood what that was about...

Don't forget 日本人の知らない日本語　was made into a fairly popular (well, on this forum at least) series this year.

http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Nihonjin_no_Shiranai_Nihongo
http://jdorama.com/drama.1563.htm

My wife and her friends got a kick out of it. Still haven't watched it past episode 3 so I'll reserve judgement.

Nukemarine Wrote:Don't forget 日本人の知らない日本語　was made into a fairly popular (well, on this forum at least) series this year.

Is it as good as the book?

IceCream Wrote:sounds cool!

any ideas, if i went to a 漫画喫茶, what section would i find it in?

I have absolutely no idea, sorry I don't have much experience with 漫画喫茶, so I'm not even entirely sure if they stock things like this. Can anyone verify if they stock anything that is simpy in manga-form, be it essays or anything? I was under the impression that 漫画喫茶 stock mostly only the general serialized manga series and such.

I suppose it depends a lot on the place in specific, though. At Kinokuniya all those types of essay manga series are put in the essay section rather than the manga section, for example.

Asriel Wrote:IIRC, she added a lot of furigana to the series after the first one, due to a lot of foreign readership...

Yep! I should've been more specific. ダーリンは外国人 was intended for mostly just native readers, but the other books in the series contain furigana.

I watched the movie. The foreign male character's Japanese is absolutely awesome!!
If you like the manga, you should definitely watch the movie, too

Just watched it last weekend. Loved every second of it. Very funny and at times touching movie.

Here is an interesting article about the author's real life husband - http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/f...214ww.html
Apparently he is a very passionate polyglot and a kanji buff.

vonPeterhof Wrote:Here is an interesting article about the author's real life husband - http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/f...214ww.html
Apparently he is a very passionate polyglot and a kanji buff.

"If a day arrives in which I have to go back to being monolingual, then that would be a sad day."
I agree with this 100%. You start to feel fulfilling knowing more than one language. It opens more doors and more doors for more knowledge

By the way, his Japanese is awesome.

magamo Wrote:By the way, his Japanese is awesome.

if he could do it, then we all can do it

magamo Wrote:By the way, his Japanese is awesome.

Wow! Has he mentioned anywhere how he learned Japanese?

ta12121 Wrote:

vonPeterhof Wrote:Here is an interesting article about the author's real life husband - http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/f...214ww.html
Apparently he is a very passionate polyglot and a kanji buff.

"If a day arrives in which I have to go back to being monolingual, then that would be a sad day."
I agree with this 100%. You start to feel fulfilling knowing more than one language. It opens more doors and more doors for more knowledge

It's actually so enjoyable that japanese friends of my friends opened a more like a real japanese kitchen, cafe or smthn. And the owners speak English and Estonian too, besides japanese.

And so it was the first time that I experienced talking in 3 languages simultaneously with the japanese, and there was big talk like in all 3 languages and we used them in different ways (wonder if we could make a study out of this phenomenon). Everyone was in their comfort zone and we switched languages according to our comfort zone and there was no misunderstanding.(Y)

magamo Wrote:By the way, his Japanese is awesome.

I now have a huge man-crush on this guy. He can sing in xhosa!!! And his Japanese is great, plus he really pulls off that hat/beard combination. I have a new role model.

Definitely a benchmark for us all to aspire to someday. For those of us that aren't as skilled as he is, keep in mind that he's 50 (I'm guessing the average age here is around college to early 30s) and he's been living in Japan for 25 years. It can be done, just takes time.

One of my Japanese language professors in college was an Italian guy who had wicked skills. The fact that he was teaching a foreign language (Japanese) in another foreign language (English) blew my mind everyday.

Funnily enough, this was the first native media I ever read in Japanese.

Blahah Wrote:

magamo Wrote:By the way, his Japanese is awesome.

I now have a huge man-crush on this guy. He can sing in xhosa!!! And his Japanese is great, plus he really pulls off that hat/beard combination. I have a new role model.

agreed!

Blahah Wrote:he really pulls off that hat/beard combination. I have a new role model.

lol
Yeah, he's really got the Indiana Jones look going well

What's interesting to note about Tony, at least according to the manga and now the movie is that his whole infatuation with Japanese was sparked when he was at a Japanese art exhibition in the states and he came across this kanji 「華」 . He said it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen and thus started his journey on the road to fluency/living in Japan. Im not sure how true this actually is but it is food for thought.

Sidebar - What do you think is the most beautiful kanji?　As of late I'm quite fond of 猟 for some reason.

I think I met this guy once!

I can't be sure but from his picture he sure could have been a older guy I met in a Starbucks near Meiji-Jingu a couple years ago. Me and my roommate were studying Kanji one table over and he was telling us about the history of　行　and how it got its various readings. He let on that he was a somewhat well know author who wrote in Japanese. He also talked about how he liked the freedom of expression Japanese allows with subordinate clauses.

I've always wondered who that guy was.

magamo Wrote:By the way, his Japanese is awesome.

I have that hat :$